Slow Progress with Panda Proves Challenge for Webmasters

The roll-out of Google’s Panda update is happening, albeit slowly. Imagine the speed of a panda chewing through bamboo, leisurely, deliberately, but with a measured end-goal in mind – that is Panda 4.2.

Google has admitted that the algorithm refresh could take months to complete, which means that, while the Panda algorithm is site-wide, some pages might not see any changes for a while to come. Sites penalised by the last refresh should see some recovery in organic rankings, provided they have made the necessary changes, but again this will be slow to show. Google says Panda 4.2 will affect about 2-3% of English language queries.

Not surprisingly, the update – the 29th in Panda’s history – is causing frustration for webmasters. According to Search Engine Watch, sites are seeing huge impacts on rankings, while the slow nature of the roll-out is giving webmasters a hard time trying to make sense of it all.

Hallmark, Search Engine Watch reported, lost 20% of its keywords, according to AJ Ghergich, of content marketing agency Ghergich & Co. Other SEO specialists said that site rankings had become ‘volatile’ with lots of shuffling around.

The last Panda refresh took place in September 2015. Panda 4.1 affected 3-5% of queries.